What a Fantastic Game

From the creators of Crown of Glory come an epic tale of North Vs. South. By combining area movement on the grand scale with optional hex based tactical battles when they occur, Forge of Freedom provides something for every strategy gamer. Control economic development, political development with governers and foreign nations, and use your military to win the bloodiest war in US history.

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Gil R.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Gil R. »

Sure, if we did this it would probably be a game option.

One of the biggest barriers in the way of implementing this would be the need to add a whole bunch of new hexes to detailed combat. As I mentioned in another thread, that actually takes an awful lot of work: not only does Pixelpusher need to create the graphics, but Eric has to train the AI to deal with each on offense and defense, and then we need to test it to make sure it's working well. And the palette of hexes that we can currently work with has some gaps that would need to be filled before we could create historical battlefields: to do Antietam's "Bloody Lane" we'd need a sunken road hex, to do 2nd Manassas (and some others) we'd need a railroad embankment, to do Gettysburg we'd need giant boulders as in the "Devil's Den," Monocacy requires railroad bridges, etc. (Of course, adding some new hexes for this purpose would also benefit the randomized maps, though it would also involve additional coding to get the game to know where to put these new hexes.)
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Ironclad »

Although the idea of refighting Gettysburg or whatever has great appeal that would require the full works ie same orders of battle and replicated start conditions. If that isn't a runner then the use of the actual battle terrain becomes far less important, indeed random terrain even when repeated has the advantage of being less well known and therefore a better battlefield experience.

So maybe one possibility would be to add a new range of terrain features or new combination of existing ones that could be inserted into the existing maps. Hopefully that would be a cheaper way, in terms of development time, to make available more unknown battlefield maps. However I wouldn't see this as a priority compared to other possible developments.

A health warning though: I hope that any improvements won't make the game unplayable by moving it beyond current system requirements. FOF is a great game and happily works on my laptop without generating constant fan use - there is some, particularly for larger HW battles, but with the use of an external cooler this is kept within limits. In contrast AGEOD's ACW (the same stated system requirements as FOF) generates constant use of my laptop cooler despite the external help. Result game left on the shelf.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by pixelpusher »

ORIGINAL: Ironclad
Although the idea of refighting Gettysburg or whatever has great appeal .. (SNIP) .. indeed random terrain even when repeated has the advantage of being less well known and therefore a better battlefield experience.


That's the reason why they're random now - we wanted the player to not be familiar with a map going in! (unlike say, some of the total war games where you get to know the maps.)

But, on the other hand, it would be fun to refight Gettysburg in FoF detailed battle, or to play a battle with slightly tweaked forces or whatever. (ie counterfactuals). Either way, I think the player would have the option to include the custom maps or not, so the players can have the experience they prefer. What might be fun could be being able to play a series of historical battles for a score. Like a single-player ladder, maybe. That would be HW only and not require the whole strategic game.
So maybe one possibility would be to add a new range of terrain features or new combination of existing ones that could be inserted into the existing maps. Hopefully that would be a cheaper way, in terms of development time, to make available more unknown battlefield maps.

Our terrain system is pretty flexible, so it can handle new gfx pretty readilly, within reason. The trick is to teach the AI how to work with it. Particularly, say, new categories of things. What sort of terrain features were you thinking about?
I hope that any improvements won't make the game unplayable by moving it beyond current system requirements. FOF is a great game and happily works on my laptop without generating constant fan use - there is some, particularly for larger HW battles, but with the use of an external cooler this is kept within limits. In contrast AGEOD's ACW (the same stated system requirements as FOF) generates constant use of my laptop cooler despite the external help. Result game left on the shelf.

Fear not: None of the improvements we're talking about above should increase the performance requirements!

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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Missouri_Rebel »

I guess we are talking about a variation of the existing engine. My suggestions were given with the understanding that there might be a re-write eventually. While I would welcome(read purchase) an expansion of the original, my true wish is for a 'fresh' and overhauled FoF that was groundbreaking while keeping the things that are done well. Any chance of seeing such a project?

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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by hgilmer »

    I think a historical battlefield addition would be pretty cool.  Of course you would never have the same actual battle, but you could kind of try to get the same number of units there.

Or.... you could build into the game some sort of several factors that need to be in place to trigger an actual battle of Gettysburg and  at the almost correct date.

What i mean is if you are just playing the game and at, near or around July of 1863, certain triggers happen and the game asks something along the lines of "You and your opponent have the opportunity to refight Gettysburg with much the same order of battle as the original.  Would you like to see if you could do better?" And then you could have a Yes or No choice and go into the basic same battle set up.


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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Gil R. »

ORIGINAL: hgilmer

Or.... you could build into the game some sort of several factors that need to be in place to trigger an actual battle of Gettysburg and at the almost correct date.

What i mean is if you are just playing the game and at, near or around July of 1863, certain triggers happen and the game asks something along the lines of "You and your opponent have the opportunity to refight Gettysburg with much the same order of battle as the original. Would you like to see if you could do better?" And then you could have a Yes or No choice and go into the basic same battle set up.

That strikes me as perhaps an unnecessary complexity. But what we could do is include in the historical maps the raw numbers in terms of how many men fought for each side, and have those numbers factor into the decision of which battlefield(s) should be available. So if two armies in Fredericksburg are adding up to around 70,000 men, they might get Manassas, but if they're at 200,000 one gets Chancellorsville. This might be a useful mechanism to track, since smaller battles will have smaller battlefields (generally speaking). Perhaps a better example would be the Battle of South Mountain, with 46,000 men, compared to Antietam. Then again, perhaps this idea is an unnecessary complexity.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by ericbabe »

One idea we had was to have the human-designed maps randomly available after the Initiative Check before a battle, so listed among the options among such things as "Wooded and Populous" it might also say "Fredericksburg" and so forth.

Ideally the system would be open enough such that users could design their own maps, put them in the proper directory, and the game would automatically add them to options available during the game.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by takati97realm »

I understand it was a design choice.... I'm for historical "like" maps. I feel the strategy map scale is perfect to include several predesigned maps, and then based on a "choice" open, wildernness etc. . One has certain battle map options.. entire battle site or certain section of a battle site.

I think this could allow for more choices/options that make the game feel more civil war. Like the defender gets to choose where victory point locations are at perhaps with certain parameters (not that you couldn't do that currently with random map).

As per walls/sunken roads... isn't there already an entrenchment field works digging in feature in the game? Sounds like code reuse to me....

But I wouldn't go so far as getting extremely detailed on heights and every little picket fence etc. I'm not going to sit here and prettend I know every last detail/scale of all the major battle sites.But I do think historic "like" maps would add a lot of civil war feel that is absent from the current detailed battle game.And you already have all the main terrain features handy... And as mentioned I think by others, I believe the civil war general maps are freeware...and even if they weren't, who wouldn't want to make a little extra money by using that evil word of license....As for the scale of those maps and the current... i'd say near identical....

I don't think anyone would be realistically trying to create a recreation of battles like gettysburg antetiam etc.... but there are reasons battles were fought there. As far as "actual troop" deployment...Forgot history... let initiative choose direction of entry... or "scripted" entry points...... But isn't the AI already scripted to look and interact with certain terrain types in a certain way? So I don't see how anything would need to be recoded there...

My main beef with detailed combat, I don't feel like i'm fighting the civil war fighting over random rocks. look a random lake. who on earth would put a town there. He wants me to defend those three objectives ?????!!!!!????? The enemy can have them. Look we're fighting in Virginia, seems just like Mississippi.... Oh wait...this is Mississippi....Or was it Missouri? It all looks the same to me... It's an over expensive sandbox...

My other beef is the battle objectives.... They make no strategic since in relation to the terrain...The terrain layout makes no sense....It makes no sense to be fighting here... where is here... Is this even the civil war? Lets be honest, anyone who has played civil war generals I or II knows that the map is simply a historic map, and the historic similarities end there for the most part. But for some reason "being" there was all the difference.

If you are not going to make historic maps.... could you shrink the detailed battle randomness to say half a 1600X???? monitor of hexes. You might as well just have deployment north... deployment south ...couple of hexes in between ... width is 2 spaces to the left and two spaces to the right larger than 60-70% of the largest sides battle units and only one to two hexes of "reserve" space. I never understood why the random maps where so large anyway... Yes this would cut down on pursuit losses.... but I've always felt pursuit losses in the civil war games were more fiction than fact....deaths and captured units I feel were always something at or near the point of engagement (for majority of either)...Granted most deaths came to disease of wound infections if I'm not mistaken....

While were're talking about civil war generals II... I miss the Corps leader/headquarters unit and how it was seperate from fighting units...don't have to waste fighting forces on someone who really is just "leading" and not fighting....do Corps leaders/division leaders even have any ratings affects on subordinates in detailed battle in forge of freedom? I remember there was a fire multiplier...but I don't recall seeing any other visual aid or influence over troops or subordinate commanders...

and speaking of influence and generals =)... ah...the days your brigade/regiment commander or division commander got shot and had to be replaced by none other than that lothsome leader that provided negative traits to all the subordinates in the heat of battle....where is the cutscene of the general walking in the woods and getting sniped when you need it...No not that one...noooo that's not the right general either.... NO I don't want cutscenes...but it was morbidly enjoyable losing so many generals in battle.... particularly when the battles got fierce and contested....

But forge of freedom has superior AI battle intellegience(perhaps the best overall that I've seen, arguably, for any hex game...(battle maps to big though, particularly for being random), it has the campaign/strategic map that generals II doesn't have (no offense but AGEOD's strategy map has the best strategy scale in my opinion, regarding civil war...only to date though =)......). I'd also say forge of freedom has the best order of battle that I've encountered. It has ease of use and scale regarding size units and number of units in a container for each side. Perhaps the design allows one to build Corps and "Armies" to soon but I like how one gets to choose and move around it's generals...I don't recall if it does... but perhaps a feature where generals stats could fluctuate depending on losses of soldiers in battle/obtaining victory/is he leading men wounded...I think it was Hood who wasn't exactly sane after he lost an arm... sure there are other examples...add some emphasis of finding the right man for the job...but keeping it somewhat historical...

But alas I've completely fallen off topic...sorry...Yes given the current design of the game...I'd say historic maps were a must...But alas I didn't design it...nor could I at this point in my programming career....While a pretty good game, it's current design is hard to call it a civil war game, and I feel(given the current design) that has mostly to do with the generic pointless detailed battles of no mans lands.

I'll admit I had an assumption the game was going to be "like" a civil war generals I and II battle wise... with a strategy map and order of battle that could be manipulated, economy etc. I feel you messed up the one thing that was already done for you, and I've always felt like I received half to 3/4 of a game... It just never felt like the civil war....And besides historical maps,which I'd for one pay for, given the current overall design of the game... I don't see what could possibly warrant one wanting to put more money into say a forge of freedom two. I could see a complete overhaul of the engine and game mechanics...but other than that....

Well, I hope I didn't come across as bashing,that was not my intent, merely constructive.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Erik Rutins »

Hi Takati,
ORIGINAL: takati97realm
I understand it was a design choice.... I'm for historical "like" maps. I feel the strategy map scale is perfect to include several predesigned maps, and then based on a "choice" open, wildernness etc. . One has certain battle map options.. entire battle site or certain section of a battle site.

That's the plan under discussion for a possible expansion, yep.
This could allow for more choices/options that make the game feel more civil war. Like the defender gets to choose where victory point locations are at perhaps with certain parameters (not that you couldn't do that currently with random map).

Well, that's really the point. Right now, the random maps do work just like battlefields did for the real civil war. The historical battlefields were not pre-destined in the sense that everyone knew the war would be fought there. They ended up as the battlefields based on the choices made by the opposing generals and the lay of the land and the position of the armies. That's what the current battlefield choices represent and once you actually get to the battlefield, most battles usually end up resolved over part of it rather than the whole, based again on the choices you make during the detailed battle. It feels very historical to me, even though the maps themselves are representative rather than exact historical battlefields.
handy... And as mentioned I think by others, I believe the civil war general maps are freeware...and even if they weren't, who wouldn't want to make a little extra money by using that evil word of license....As for the scale of those maps and the current... i'd say near identical....

Personally, I think the Talonsoft Battleground maps were the best made for those battlefields. CWG was a great game, but I don't see the point of going back and trying to re-use their maps or graphics. I think our graphics are a darn sight better and we can make more historical maps as well if we decide to do that. In a grand strategy game where all of history takes an alternate path once play starts, I think it's understandable why including the historical battlefields doesn't seem to be a requirement. At the same time, I think it would be a cool addition.
My other beef is the battle objectives.... They make no strategic since in relation to the terrain...The terrain layout makes no sense....It makes no sense to be fighting here... where is here... Is this even the civil war? Lets be honest, anyone who has played civil war generals I or II knows that the map is simply a historic map, and the historic similarities end there for the most part. But for some reason "being" there was all the difference.

Hm, I can't agree with that. I've fought on a lot of maps in FOF that reminded me strongly of historical battlefields in the area where they were fought.
only one to two hexes of "reserve" space. I never understood why the random maps where so large anyway... Yes this would cut down on pursuit losses.... but I've always felt pursuit losses in the civil war games were more fiction than fact....deaths and captured units I feel were always something at or near the point of engagement (for majority of either)...Granted most deaths came to disease of wound infections if I'm not mistaken....

Pursuit losses includes stragglers, which were very much a fact of any defeated and retreating ACW army. The maps are so large to allow you to choose your ground as the historical generals did and to allow you room for flanking maneuvers, second lines, reserves, etc.
While were're talking about civil war generals II... I miss the Corps leader/headquarters unit and how it was seperate from fighting units...don't have to waste fighting forces on someone who really is just "leading" and not fighting....do Corps leaders/division leaders even have any ratings affects on subordinates in detailed battle in forge of freedom? I remember there was a fire multiplier...but I don't recall seeing any other visual aid or influence over troops or subordinate commanders...

Yes, turn on the combat reports and you'll see. The manual also describes the wide variety of effects leaders have in detailed combat in FOF. You can also assign a Corps Leader to a supply unit or a rear area unit if you want to keep them out of the way, just use the "G" key.
and speaking of influence and generals =)... ah...the days your brigade/regiment commander or division commander got shot and had to be replaced by none other than that lothsome leader that provided negative traits to all the subordinates in the heat of battle....where is the cutscene of the general walking in the woods and getting sniped when you need it...No not that one...noooo that's not the right general either.... NO I don't want cutscenes...but it was morbidly enjoyable losing so many generals in battle.... particularly when the battles got fierce and contested....

Um, how much FOF have you played? Generals are regularly lost in detailed combat.
But forge of freedom has superior AI battle intellegience(perhaps the best overall that I've seen, arguably, for any hex game...(battle maps to big though, particularly for being random), it has the campaign/strategic map that generals II doesn't have (no offense but AGEOD's strategy map has the best strategy scale in my opinion, regarding civil war...only to date though =)......). I'd also say forge of freedom has the best order of battle that I've encountered. It has ease of use and scale regarding size units and number of units in a container for each side. Perhaps the design allows one to build Corps and "Armies" to soon but I like how one gets to choose and move around it's generals...I don't recall if it does... but perhaps a feature where generals stats could fluctuate depending on losses of soldiers in battle/obtaining victory/is he leading men wounded...I think it was Hood who wasn't exactly sane after he lost an arm... sure there are other examples...add some emphasis of finding the right man for the job...but keeping it somewhat historical...

I'm glad you like those parts of FOF. Playing with hidden/random stats really duplicates the search for a good general for me at least. Adding in something like "semi-random" might work, also your suggestion about allowing some fluctuation of stats based on battle results might be interesting to implement as well. Right now, if random stats are on, stats can fluctuate when a general is promoted - which gives you the "Hood effect".
Well, I hope I didn't come across as bashing,that was not my intent, merely constructive.

Well, your last paragraph I felt was far too negative. Lacking the historical battlefields is hardly something that torpedoes the game as a whole. It still "feels" like the entire Civil War to me, just one where I get to fight it out so it does turn out somewhat differently. Heck, I'm fighting a PBEM now where the CSA player is about to besiege Pittsburgh! Which historical battlefield would I choose for that? [;)] In any case, thanks for the feedback, it's good for us to know what you did and didn't like about the game.

Regards,

- Erik
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by ericbabe »

Yes, thanks for the great quantity of feedback!

Regarding whether the maps should be random or whether we should only use historical battle maps, we've received enough positive feedback on the random maps (both for FOF and COG) to indicate that a great number of our players like the random maps.  I'd never consider substituting purely designed maps for the random ones; such a system (if we did it) would only supplement the random one.  We use fairly sophisticated fractal algorithms for generating the battle maps.

As for the objective-hexes, I agree they are contrived to a certain extent, but it's a contrivance that many other wargames of this sort use, seemingly to great effect.  I recall from refighting the Battle of Ligny on the old Talonsoft games that there was a certain windmill that was worth a lot of victory points if I captured it.  I once narrowly lost the battle as the French because I was one turn short of capturing that windmill when the game ended.  My Napoleonic Empire fell apart for want of that windmill!  I have no idea why that windmill was a make-or-break victory point location, but it gave the battles a coherent sort of narrative and worked very well as a game mechanism.  Certainly lots of people seem to have enjoyed those old Talonsoft games.  We don't have victory hexes in COG, but we had many players request them, and based on that we added them to FOF.

The suggestion that we made a design decision is correct.  There are plenty of games out there that allow players to re-fight the Civil War by stringing together historical battles.  We wanted to distinguish FOF from these by emphasizing the grand strategy aspect of the game, and by tying the battles to the grand strategy as tightly as we could.  By necessity, this means keeping the options for detailed battles unrestricted.

Personally I much more enjoy fighting battles that have context, and personally I think the game mechanisms we use in FOF (and COG!) give more context to the battles than any other game on the market.  The context we give to the battles isn't purely historical context -- the chances of exactly re-fighting a Gettysburg in FOF is very low -- rather, the context is within the grand strategy portion of our game.

I can understand that if a player is going into detailed combat thinking, "Lee never fought this battle!" that player might be disappointed.  However, there are plenty of other games that players who want battles in a pure historical context can play.  We wanted to distinguish our games from these types of games. 

One idea for another type of product our engine would be to produce a series of detailed battle scenarios that would allow players to re-fight the Civil War (or Napoleonic Wars) one historical battle at a time using only the detailed combat portion of our game.  Part of the goal of the discussion on this thread is to ascertain whether such a game with our engine would have market appeal even though there are plenty of other games out there that do just this.

As for Virginia being no different than Missouri, we actually have terrain information to indicate what sorts of terrain should be available, and to what degree, in detailed combat for every single movement area in the map, including levels of population, roads, etc.  Gil went through enormous pain putting this file together, and he'll be very sad [:(] to read the claim that FOF makes no terrain distinctions between provinces.



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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Gil R. »

As for Virginia being no different than Missouri, we actually have terrain information to indicate what sorts of terrain should be available, and to what degree, in detailed combat for every single movement area in the map, including levels of population, roads, etc. Gil went through enormous pain putting this file together, and he'll be very sad to read the claim that FOF makes no terrain distinctions between provinces.

No, I wasn't sad, since I realize that Missouri and Virginia share the same terrain types -- the difference is in the %chance of certain terrains showing up. So mathematically speaking, it's possible for two battlefields that are identical in terms of terrain types to show up in those states, but if one plays the entire game through 1865 then over time one will have a greater number of battles in thick woods when fighting in Fredericksburg and a greater number fought in swampy areas in coastal North Carolina, and so forth.

But I do know that that terrain file is a monster that took countless hours, and does have the right terrains showing up. No mountains in Kansas, lots of mountains in eastern Tennessee, etc.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Missouri_Rebel »

It is true that much of Missouri resembles Virginia. Robert E Lee, when working in the area, thought so too. The town of Richmond Heights up in St.Louis was named as such by the General because it reminded him so much of home.

lil tidbit there. not much to add otherwise.

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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Gil R. »

Interesting. I did not know that.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by michaelincolorado »

Replying to Eric's question below:

A game of strung together historical tactical battles using FoF engine and AI would have GREAT appeal to me and I am sure many others. Although there are many other games of historical Civil War battles out there, the appeal and unique factor here would be the superior AI the FoF engine (both strategic and tactical battle) has over anything else out there with the exception of Mad Minute's gem- and I would think that should be emphasized. Notice any poll on most any wargame asking whether use will be PBEM or solo with AI almost always has results weighted overwhelmingly to solo with AI. And yet very few wargames (Civil War particularly) have a good AI - all the Tiller games come immediately to mind - great maps, great set of battles, but lousy AI that has never been improved.

I think you have a niche here to morph the existing code into without hopefully too labor intensive a task to add the historical battles and thereby give your fans some more goodies and hopefully allow you to make some more money for all your great work.


One idea for another type of product our engine would be to produce a series of detailed battle scenarios that would allow players to re-fight the Civil War (or Napoleonic Wars) one historical battle at a time using only the detailed combat portion of our game. Part of the goal of the discussion on this thread is to ascertain whether such a game with our engine would have market appeal even though there are plenty of other games out there that do just this.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by pzpat »

     A historic battlefield option or scenario would be interesting, and worth a try, but I don't really think I would replay that option any more often than the Guns of the South scenario (which I haven't even started yet), and probably not as often.
     I'm currently fighting battles near the Mississippi River, and when I go to detailed combat the rivers on the maps are always running east-west.  Aren't there any rivers that run north-south? 
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by jkBluesman »

What makes you think that North is at the top of the battlefield map? In other words there are already rivers running north-south.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by takati97realm »

In regards to generals getting killed off, and tactical battle in my previous post there was a reply  "Um, how much FOF have you played? Generals are regularly lost in detailed combat."

A lot from December to February/March. Since the First Major patch in like April to around June or so. Around 3 to 4. Since July, zilch. Always played the June/July scenario. Never played past summer of '62. Of all the games, I can recall only losing 1 general, the Union/AI several.

But I'm sure if I would have played longer or more frequently with the patch, I'm sure I would have found generals died more often. I'm looking forward to trying the new patch. [:)]
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by moose1999 »

It's still possible to avoid having your generals killed.
If you really want them to stay alive, you can adjust your strategy accordingly and you'll rarely/never see a dead general.
But this comes at a price, of course. It will force you to be very conservative and careful, and you really won't benefit as much as you should/could from your general's bonuses if you always keep them out of harms way and avoid taking chances in detailed battles.
By babysitting and overprotecting your generals, you will keep them alive but give the enemy a significant tactical edge.
But if you want to do a McClellan, you can. But it'll cost you, just as it did the Union in real life.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Anthropoid »

Wow. Thought I was subscribed to this thread and here it has being going crazy for a while!

I see what you are saying about the battles rarely working out to be exactly the same because of the scripted AI and the specific order of battle issues. It does sound like a lot of effort, and could indeed be quite disappointing. Think I'm subscribed to this thread now, so it will notify me by email.
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RE: What a Fantastic Game

Post by Gil R. »

Well, it's not exactly WITP's "The Thread," but it's got an obvious will to live...

Perhaps the ideal might be just to create a map editor, but not ourselves devote countless man-hours to working on the historical battlefields ourselves. (Even if Mr. Z -- our main map researcher -- and I didn't make any maps ourselves, we'd still have to pore over them for quality-control because they'd be going out as part of an official WCS release.) Those who created historical maps could share them with the rest of us, and perhaps we might even release the best ones in patches, making their use a game option.

More input is still welcome, though.
Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I torment eager potential customers by not sharing screenshots of "Brother Against Brother." Everyone has a talent.
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